1 Kings 4

³⁰Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years.

¹⁹So to this day Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David.

²⁰When all Israel heard that Jeroboam had returned, they summoned him to the assembly and made him king over all Israel. Only the tribe of Judah followed the house of David.

³⁸All these men of war, arrayed for battle, came to Hebron fully determined to make David king over all Israel. And all the rest of the Israelites were of one mind to make David king.

¹²I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem.

³⁵But I will take ten tribes of the kingdom from the hand of his son and give them to you.

³⁶I will give one tribe to his son, so that My servant David will always have a lamp before Me in Jerusalem, the city where I chose to put My Name.

¹³Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom away from him. I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.”

²⁸And in the church God has appointed first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then workers of miracles, and those with gifts of healing, helping, administration, and various tongues.

²¹Furthermore, select capable men from among the people—God-fearing, trustworthy men who are averse to dishonest gain. Appoint them over the people as leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties, and of tens.

²³Now Joab was over the whole army of Israel; Benaiah son of Jehoiada was over the Cherethites and Pelethites;

²⁴Adoram was in charge of the forced labor; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the recorder;

¹⁵Thus David reigned over all Israel and administered justice and righteousness for all his people:

¹⁶Joab son of Zeruiah was over the army; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the recorder;

⁸Ahitub was the father of Zadok, Zadok was the father of Ahimaaz,

⁹Ahimaaz was the father of Azariah, Azariah was the father of Johanan,

¹⁷over Levi was Hashabiah son of Kemuel; over Aaron was Zadok;

¹⁶Joab son of Zeruiah was over the army; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the recorder;

⁶On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have posted watchmen; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord shall take no rest for yourselves,

¹⁵Joab son of Zeruiah was over the army; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the recorder;

⁶Then he placed garrisons in Aram of Damascus, and the Arameans became subject to David and brought him tribute. So the Lord made David victorious wherever he went.

²⁴Adoram was in charge of the forced labor; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the recorder;

²⁵Sheva was the scribe; Zadok and Abiathar were priests;

³⁵And the king appointed Benaiah son of Jehoiada in Joab’s place over the army, and he appointed Zadok the priest in Abiathar’s place.

²⁶Then the king said to Abiathar the priest, “Go back to your fields in Anathoth. Even though you deserve to die, I will not put you to death at this time, since you carried the ark of the Lord God before my father David, and you suffered through all that my father suffered.”

²⁷So Solomon banished Abiathar from the priesthood of the Lord and thus fulfilled the word that the Lord had spoken at Shiloh against the house of Eli.

³⁷So David’s friend Hushai arrived in Jerusalem just as Absalom was entering the city.

³³Ahithophel was the king’s counselor. Hushai the Archite was the king’s friend.

¹⁶And David’s friend Hushai the Archite went to Absalom and said to him, “Long live the king! Long live the king!”

¹⁴You are My friends if you do what I command you.

¹⁵No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because everything I have learned from My Father I have made known to you.

²⁵and sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah because the Lord loved him.

²he said to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of God remains in a tent.”

²⁴Adoram was in charge of the forced labor; Jehoshaphat son of Ahilud was the recorder;

¹⁸Then King Rehoboam sent out Adoram, who was in charge of the forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death. And King Rehoboam mounted his chariot in haste and escaped to Jerusalem.

¹⁵This is the account of the forced labor that King Solomon imposed to build the house of the Lord, his own palace, the supporting terraces, and the wall of Jerusalem, as well as Hazor, Megiddo, and Gezer.

¹³Then King Solomon conscripted a labor force of 30,000 men from all Israel.

¹⁴He sent them to Lebanon in monthly shifts of 10,000 men, so that they would spend one month in Lebanon and two months at home. And Adoniram was in charge of the forced labor.

¹This is the list of the Israelites—the heads of families, the commanders of thousands and of hundreds, and their officers who served the king in every matter concerning the divisions on rotating military duty each month throughout the year. There were 24,000 men in each division:

²Jashobeam son of Zabdiel was in charge of the first division, which was assigned the first month. There were 24,000 men in his division.

³³Eleazar son of Aaron also died, and they buried him at Gibeah, which had been given to his son Phinehas in the hill country of Ephraim.

¹Now in those days, when there was no king in Israel, a Levite who lived in the remote hill country of Ephraim took for himself a concubine from Bethlehem in Judah.

¹Now a man named Micah from the hill country of Ephraim

⁴²Shaalabbin, Aijalon, Ithlah,

¹²And the cows headed straight up the road toward Beth-shemesh, staying on that one highway and lowing as they went, never straying to the right or to the left. The rulers of the Philistines followed behind them to the border of Beth-shemesh.

³⁵And the Amorites were determined to dwell in Mount Heres, Aijalon, and Shaalbim. But when the house of Joseph grew in strength, they pressed the Amorites into forced labor.

¹⁶Ain, Juttah, and Beth-shemesh—nine cities from these two tribes, together with their pasturelands.

²⁰The men of Beth-shemesh asked, “Who can stand in the presence of the Lord, this holy God? To whom should the ark go up from here?”

¹⁷the king of Tappuah, one; the king of Hepher, one;

³⁵Jarmuth, Adullam, Socoh, Azekah,

²So this allotment was for the rest of the descendants of Manasseh—the clans of Abiezer, Helek, Asriel, Shechem, Hepher, and Shemida. These are the other male descendants of the clans of Manasseh son of Joseph.

²to the kings of the north in the mountains, in the Arabah south of Chinnereth, in the foothills, and in Naphoth-dor to the west;

¹¹Within Issachar and Asher, Manasseh was assigned Beth-shean, Ibleam, Dor (that is, Naphath), Endor, Taanach, and Megiddo, each with their surrounding settlements.

²³the king of Dor in Naphath-dor, one; the king of Goiim in Gilgal, one;

²⁷At that time Manasseh failed to drive out the inhabitants of Beth-shean, Taanach, Dor, Ibleam, Megiddo, and their villages; for the Canaanites were determined to dwell in that land.

¹¹Within Issachar and Asher, Manasseh was assigned Beth-shean, Ibleam, Dor (that is, Naphath), Endor, Taanach, and Megiddo, each with their surrounding settlements.

¹⁶the flowing water stood still. It backed up as far upstream as Adam, a city in the area of Zarethan, while the water flowing toward the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.

¹⁶You are also to anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel and Elisha son of Shaphat from Abel-meholah to succeed you as prophet.

¹⁹Kings came and fought; then the kings of Canaan fought at Taanach by the waters of Megiddo, but they took no plunder of silver.

⁴⁶The king had them cast in clay molds in the plain of the Jordan between Succoth and Zarethan.

⁶⁸Jokmeam, Beth-horon,

⁴At that time we captured all sixty of his cities. There was not a single city we failed to take—the entire region of Argob, the kingdom of Og in Bashan.

⁴¹Jair, a descendant of Manasseh, went and captured their villages and called them Havvoth-jair.

³who said to his servants, “Do you not know that Ramoth-gilead is ours, but we have failed to take it from the hand of the king of Aram?”

¹⁴Thus Jehu son of Jehoshaphat, the son of Nimshi, conspired against Joram. (Now Joram and all Israel had been defending Ramoth-gilead against Hazael king of Aram,

⁴³Bezer in the wilderness on the plateau belonging to the Reubenites, Ramoth in Gilead belonging to the Gadites, or Golan in Bashan belonging to the Manassites.

³⁸And from the tribe of Gad they were given Ramoth in Gilead, a city of refuge for the manslayer, Mahanaim,

²When Jacob saw them, he said, “This is the camp of God.” So he named that place Mahanaim.

⁸Meanwhile, Abner son of Ner, the commander of Saul’s army, took Saul’s son Ish-bosheth, moved him to Mahanaim,

²⁶the territory from Heshbon to Ramath-mizpeh and Betonim, and from Mahanaim to the border of Debir;

²⁴Then David went to Mahanaim, and Absalom crossed the Jordan with all the men of Israel.

²⁷When David came to Mahanaim, he was met by Shobi son of Nahash from Rabbah of the Ammonites, Machir son of Ammiel from Lo-debar, and Barzillai the Gileadite from Rogelim.

¹⁸And David said to Saul, “Who am I, and what is my family or my father’s clan in Israel, that I should become the son-in-law of the king?”

³²The sixth lot came out for the clans of the tribe of Naphtali:

³³Their border started at Heleph and the great tree of Zaanannim, passing Adami-nekeb and Jabneel as far as Lakkum and ending at the Jordan.

²⁷The king also said to Zadok the priest, “Are you not a seer? Return to the city in peace—you with your son Ahimaaz, and Abiathar with his son Jonathan.

¹¹Ben-abinadab in Naphath-dor (Taphath, a daughter of Solomon, was his wife);

²⁴The fifth lot came out for the clans of the tribe of Asher:

²⁵Their territory included Helkath, Hali, Beten, Achshaph,

³²When David came to the summit, where he used to worship God, Hushai the Archite was there to meet him with his robe torn and dust on his head.

¹⁷The fourth lot came out for the clans of the tribe of Issachar:

¹⁸Their territory included Jezreel, Chesulloth, Shunem,

⁸But Zadok the priest, Benaiah son of Jehoiada, Nathan the prophet, Shimei, Rei, and David’s mighty men would not join Adonijah.

¹³the clan of the house of Levi and their wives, the clan of Shimei and their wives,

²⁰On the east side the border was the Jordan. These were the borders around the inheritance of the clans of the tribe of Benjamin.

²¹These were the cities of the clans of the tribe of Benjamin: Jericho, Beth-hoglah, Emek-keziz,

²⁶So from the Wilderness of Kedemoth I sent messengers with an offer of peace to Sihon king of Heshbon, saying,

⁹The area from Aroer on the rim of the Arnon Valley, along with the city in the middle of the valley, the whole plateau of Medeba as far as Dibon,

¹⁰and all the cities of Sihon king of the Amorites who reigned in Heshbon, as far as the border of the Ammonites;

²¹Then Israel sent messengers to Sihon king of the Amorites, saying,

²²“Let us pass through your land. We will not turn aside into any field or vineyard, or drink water from any well. We will stay on the King’s Highway until we have passed through your territory.”

⁸Your servant is here among the people You have chosen, a people too numerous to count or number.

¹⁷I will surely bless you, and I will multiply your descendants like the stars in the sky and the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will possess the gates of their enemies.

¹²But You have said, ‘I will surely make you prosper, and I will make your offspring like the sand of the sea, too numerous to count.’”

³⁹They spent three days there eating and drinking with David, for their relatives had provided for them.

⁵And the Lord took him outside and said, “Now look to the heavens and count the stars, if you are able.” Then He told him, “So shall your offspring be.”

¹⁶So he led David down, and there were the Amalekites spread out over all the land, eating, drinking, and celebrating the great amount of plunder they had taken from the land of the Philistines and the land of Judah.

¹⁸On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I have given this land—from the river of Egypt to the great River Euphrates—

⁴Your territory shall extend from the wilderness and Lebanon to the great River Euphrates—all the land of the Hittites—and west as far as the Great Sea.

²⁹Because of Your temple at Jerusalem kings will bring You gifts.

²⁶He reigned over all the kings from the Euphrates to the land of the Philistines, as far as the border of Egypt.

²⁷The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as abundant as sycamore in the foothills.

²⁴For Solomon had dominion over everything west of the Euphrates—over all the kingdoms from Tiphsah to Gaza—and he had peace on all sides.

³¹And I will establish your borders from the Red Sea to the Sea of the Philistines, and from the desert to the Euphrates. For I will deliver the inhabitants into your hand, and you will drive them out before you.

¹⁷There were 150 Jews and officials at my table, besides the guests from the surrounding nations.

¹⁸Each day one ox, six choice sheep, and some fowl were prepared for me, and once every ten days an abundance of all kinds of wine was provided. But I did not demand the food allotted to the governor, because the burden on the people was so heavy.

⁹But a son will be born to you who will be a man of rest. I will give him rest from all his enemies on every side; for his name will be Solomon, and I will grant to Israel peace and quiet during his reign.

¹¹May all kings bow down to him and all nations serve him.

¹⁹and the borders of Canaan extended from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha.

⁴But now the Lord my God has given me rest on every side, and there is no adversary or crisis.

⁷Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish and sustain it with justice and righteousness from that time and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will accomplish this.

¹⁴“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom His favor rests!”

⁴And each man will sit under his own vine and under his own fig tree, with no one to frighten him. For the mouth of the Lord of Hosts has spoken.

¹⁰On that day, declares the Lord of Hosts, you will each invite your neighbor to sit under your own vine and fig tree.’”

¹⁵In those days and at that time I will cause to sprout for David a righteous Branch, and He will administer justice and righteousness in the land.

¹⁶In those days Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will dwell securely, and this is the name by which it will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.

⁵Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous Branch, and He will reign wisely as King and will administer justice and righteousness in the land.

⁶In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is His name by which He will be called: The Lord Our Righteousness.

³¹Do not listen to Hezekiah, for this is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me and come out to me. Then every one of you will eat from his own vine and his own fig tree and drink water from his own cistern,

¹Then all the Israelites from Dan to Beersheba and from the land of Gilead came out, and the congregation assembled as one man before the Lord at Mizpah.

¹⁴Solomon accumulated 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horses, which he stationed in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem.

²⁵Solomon had 4,000 stalls for horses and chariots, and 12,000 horses, which he stationed in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem.

⁴David captured from him a thousand chariots, seven thousand charioteers, and twenty thousand foot soldiers, and he hamstrung all the horses except a hundred he kept for the chariots.

⁷Some trust in chariots and others in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

²⁵Year after year, each visitor would bring his tribute: articles of silver and gold, clothing, weapons, spices, horses, and mules.

²⁶Solomon accumulated 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horses, which he stationed in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem.

¹⁶But the king must not acquire many horses for himself or send the people back to Egypt to acquire more horses, for the Lord has said, ‘You are never to go back that way again.’

¹⁰Mordecai wrote in the name of King Xerxes and sealed it with the royal signet ring. He sent the documents by mounted couriers riding on swift horses bred from the royal mares.

¹⁴The couriers rode out in haste on their royal horses, pressed on by the command of the king. And the edict was also issued in the citadel of Susa.

¹³Harness your chariot horses, O dweller of Lachish. You were the beginning of sin to the Daughter of Zion, for the transgressions of Israel were found in you.

¹²behold, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been another like you, nor will there ever be.

¹⁷But the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peace-loving, gentle, accommodating, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial, and sincere.

⁵Now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

²⁰The people of Judah and Israel were as numerous as the sand on the seashore, and they were eating and drinking and rejoicing.

²⁶To the man who is pleasing in His sight, He gives wisdom and knowledge and joy, but to the sinner He assigns the task of gathering and accumulating that which he will hand over to one who pleases God. This too is futile and a pursuit of the wind.

¹⁷Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, with whom there is no change or shifting shadow.

¹¹There is a man in your kingdom who has the spirit of the holy gods in him. In the days of your father he was found to have insight, intelligence, and wisdom like that of the gods. Your father, King Nebuchadnezzar, appointed him chief of the magicians, enchanters, astrologers, and diviners. Your own father, the king,

¹²did this because Daniel, the one he named Belteshazzar, was found to have an extraordinary spirit, as well as knowledge, understanding, and the ability to interpret dreams, explain riddles, and solve difficult problems. Summon Daniel, therefore, and he will give you the interpretation.”

⁶But while he was still alive, Abraham gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east.

²²So Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.

²⁰In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king consulted them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his entire kingdom.

³and he owned 7,000 sheep, 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and a very large number of servants. Job was the greatest man of all the people of the East.

¹¹The princes of Zoan are mere fools; Pharaoh’s wise counselors give senseless advice. How can you say to Pharaoh, “I am one of the wise, a son of eastern kings”?

¹²Where are your wise men now? Let them tell you and reveal what the Lord of Hosts has planned against Egypt.

¹⁹The musicians Heman, Asaph, and Ethan were to sound the bronze cymbals.

⁶The sons of Zerah: Zimri, Ethan, Heman, Calcol, and Dara—five in all.

¹²behold, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been another like you, nor will there ever be.

³³These are the men who served, together with their sons. From the Kohathites: Heman the singer, the son of Joel, the son of Samuel,

¹A Maskil of Ethan the Ezrahite. I will sing of the loving devotion of the Lord forever; with my mouth I will proclaim Your faithfulness to all generations.

²For I have said, “Loving devotion is built up forever; in the heavens You establish Your faithfulness.”

³¹The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them; for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and now One greater than Solomon is here.

²³Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, and you have said: “With my many chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the remote peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the finest of its cypresses. I have reached its farthest outposts, the densest of its forests.

⁷Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

¹²The righteous will flourish like a palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.

¹⁸Then a man who is ceremonially clean is to take some hyssop, dip it in the water, and sprinkle the tent, all the furnishings, and the people who were there. He is also to sprinkle the one who touched a bone, a grave, or a person who has died or been slain.

⁶They spread out like palm groves, like gardens beside a stream, like aloes the Lord has planted, like cedars beside the waters.

²²Take a cluster of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin, and brush the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out the door of his house until morning.

²³All the kings of the earth sought an audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom that God had put in his heart.

¹Now when the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him with difficult questions.

¹Now when the queen of Sheba heard about the fame of Solomon, she came to test him with difficult questions. She arrived in Jerusalem with a very large caravan—with camels bearing spices, gold in abundance, and precious stones. And she came to Solomon and spoke with him about all that was on her mind.

²In the last days the mountain of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.

²³This is what the Lord of Hosts says: “In those days ten men from the nations of every tongue will tightly grasp the robe of a Jew, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you.’”